Under the title “Environment in danger”, our upcoming HORIZON series concentrates on the ecological transformation and therefore looks at all its challenges from various angles.
In our previous HORIZON series, we introduced our 4 Risk Changers model and took a close look at the systemic influences of ecological, geopolitical, technological, and social transformation on a company’s risk landscape.
Other crises, the climate crisis being a prominent example, are more likely to emerge as developments that gradually manifest themselves. The HORIZON – “Risk Thought » Fast Forward” is our community platform for risk thought leadership. It is based on our vision to detect the impact of these systemic risk changers at an early stage and introduce risk management solutions that boost our clients’ resilience. The extent of their impact will only occur in the future and are therefore not immediately apparent. Due to their abstract nature, these developments are overshadowed by immediate events, although their relevance is often more far-reaching and therefore require our utmost attention.
Under the title “Environment in danger”, our upcoming HORIZON series concentrates on the ecological transformation and therefore looks at all its challenges from various angles.
Risk-based methodology for transformation risks
We have developed our risk-based methodology to manage the risks associated with the underlying systemic change. We distinguish between primary transformation risks, which in the case of climate change are climate risks such as natural hazards, which are directly derived from global warming, and secondary transformation risks, which arise from the necessary adaptation of the corporate strategy (including their business models, products, services, applications, processes, and technologies) to the climate crisis thus lead to a change in the risk landscape.
When we look at climate change, primary transformation risks appear as physical risks. They are apparent in form of a changed or an increased exposure to natural disasters, such as floods, storms, hail as well as heat, drought, or a rising sea level. As far as companies are concerned, these risks can cause anything from material damages to disruptions of transport routes, in energy, or raw material supplies.
Besides these primary transformation risks, which affect companies as “pure risks” from the outside, systemic change leads to secondary transformation risks that are “speculative”. They derive from companies’ adapted business strategies that were developed in response to the systemic change and comprise both risks and opportunities.
Transformation of the ecological risk landscape
To master the ecological challenges that lie ahead of us, we will have to tackle a far-reaching transformation of our economic system. The decarbonization of industry, commerce, freight, and passenger transport as well as private households has top priority. This inevitably leads to the switch to renewable energy sources, the promotion of clean mobility, the introduction of new energy management systems and green building technologies, new ways of energy storage, the development of sustainable fuels and ultimately also new methods of carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage.
Equally important is the protection of biodiversity through a development towards a circular economy and the careful use of resources, new technologies for clean water, advanced methods in agriculture, but also nature conservation and restoration.
This HORIZON series focuses on the new risks and regulatory challenges that companies face because of this transformation, as well as the role of data analytics and AI in this area. We invited clients and business partners to join our risk thought leadership community and provide some insights on their point of view. Also, many of our employees across our group contributed to this series.
I want to thank them all for growing our community and their efforts in doing so.

Georg Winter
CEO
T +43 664 962 39 06
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